Unoriginal
by moony391
Summary: Lily Luna Potter ponders her name, and exactly what on Earth her parents had been thinking.


If there was one thing that Lily Potter could not stand, it was being pigeonholed. Well, that and the fact that Hugo insisted on calling her Lily-kins in public every chance he got. She was nearly sixteen for God's sake!

But, back to the point.

Lily despised being pigeonholed.

She blamed her parents completely for this one. As it was obviously their fault in her fifteen-but-very-nearly-sixteen year old mind. They had done this to her. They were the enemy. And they needed to be destroyed.

Well, perhaps _destroyed_ was a little harsh…

They deserved to be publicly humiliated at the very least then.

The pigeonholing had unfortunately started the moment that she had burst from her mother. A tiny girl, wailing triumphantly at her escape from the womb, with a wisp of bright red hair on her head. She had large, baby-blue eyes that would turn to the exact shade of bright brown that her mother had.

Her idiotic parents named her Lily.

After her dead grandmother.

Who had had red hair…

And thus began a long life of comparisons. Her talent in Potions? No, most definitely not because of her hours of studying and practicing with Hugo. It was because her dead grandmother that she had never met was talented in Potions.

Because everyone knows that heredity is where academic talents come from…

The red hair was no help.

_"You look just like your grandmother!" _

Lily's question, for her first decade on Earth, had been: Are you blind?

Because, with the exception of red hair and brown eyes, Lily Potter and her grandmother Molly Weasley did not look alike at all. Lily was angular and lanky, shaped rather like her father. Molly was softer, and had about twenty million more freckles.

After a while, of course, Lily had caught on that these people where generally referring to her other grandmother. Her namesake. That big important woman who had died before practically any member of her family had ever had a chance to meet her.

It just plain annoyed her.

Was it really all that amazing that she could brew a potion and have red hair? Why did that automatically signal everyone's identity alarm? Couldn't she just happen to have these traits without being some spectral reminder of a lost relative.

And if it wasn't her grandmother Lily, Lily was being compared to someone else. Like her mother, for example. Both women where quite talented as Quidditch players. Ginny was an accomplished Chaser and Seeker who had played professionally for several seasons before taking over as the Quidditch Correspondent for the _Daily Prophet_.

Lily played Beater.

She was well aware of the shock and awe that she was met with once she informed her family of her acquisition of that position on the Gryffindor Quidditch team. She had always played Seeker or Chaser during pick-up games at home.

But Lily was a good Beater. She was small, but she had a powerful swing and amazing aim. And she mostly played for the fun of it. She liked contributing to House Spirit. She thrived in times of stress. She adored competition. She liked flying. She just plain enjoyed Quidditch.

But everyone seemed to assume that Quidditch ran in her veins.

She guessed that was probably why, at a recent Quidditch math against Hufflepuff, Lily had recognized Gwenog Jones, owner of the Holyhead Harpies watching her in the crowd. She was probably planning on giving Lily a position as soon as she graduated. Give her her mother's old number, raise her popularity.

Lily fully intended to refuse the offer once it came. She had no ambitions in the Quidditch world.

Honestly, she'd rather be an Obliviator, like Teddy. His tales about his job had always fascinated Lily, and it sounded so much more interesting and fulfilling than a life spent on a broomstick. His job sounded a bit more like being an Auror, but with much less danger and many more Muggles.

Lily loved Muggles. She found them to be truly fascinating, especially after having attended a Muggle primary school until age ten. It was just astounding that they had found solutions for nearly every task that required magic.

But, of course, Lily's interest was unoriginal.

Her grandfather harbored a healthy obsession with Muggles as well.

That was obviously where she got it from.

And she read the Quibbler. Obviously because her middle name was Luna, for Luna Lovegood. She didn't simply enjoy the magazine's far-fetched ideas. She wasn't amused by them; she believed in them because her middle name was Luna. Because that decided what she read.

Just like her first name decided how she performed academically.

Like how her red hair made her a carbon copy of a dead woman.

How her interest in Quidditch made Lily her mother.

How a healthy fascination with Muggles made her the same as her grandfather.

The worst, was, of course, her last name.

Potter.

Potter made Lily into a million things she did not want to be.

Potter made Lily a Gryffindor, when she to this day was positive she would have made an excellent Ravenclaw or Slytherin.

Potter made Lily a suspect for trouble-making, even though she had only once participated in one of James's pranks, and that had been years ago.

Potter made her into an expert on Defense Against the Dark Arts in the eyes of the student body, even though that was the only O.W.L. exam that she was truly worried that she'd fail.

Potter made Lily miss out on being picked as a Prefect, a position she had always assumed she'd get once she was old enough.

Potter made Lily a tough one in the eyes of the Professors, able to handle everything they tossed at her because her brothers hadn't buckled under the pressure.

Potter made Lily small and rather scrawny.

Potter made Lily ride a broomstick well.

Potter made Lily noble and brave.

Potter made Lily just like her father.

Lily was not just like her father.

She had made completely sure of it.

She played Beater at Quidditch.

Her dad had played Seeker.

She enjoyed doing things the Muggle way after being raised by wizards.

He did nearly everything with magic having been raised by Muggles.

They did not look much alike.

Yet, they were unfortunately similar. And Lily had spent all over her life hearing about it.

If there was one thing that Lily couldn't stand, it was being compared to her father. The famous Harry Potter. Because Harry Potter was far too epic, far too famous, far too mythical a being to be compared to. It was like comparing Adam to God, for crying out loud.

Lily hated to be compared to that man because there was no comparison. She could never live up to the expectations of the world because of the man who had brought her into it. If you asked Lily, there was no comparison.

Because her father, her daddy, the man who told her she could be anything she wanted, told her that she was beautiful even though at thirteen she's had knobby knees and no figure to speak, the man who had been nothing but an amazing father ever since her birth; Lily's father wasn't the man in the history books. He wasn't the epic hero. He wasn't any of that. Her father wasn't the famous Harry Potter.

Harry Potter just so happened to her Dad.

Her Dad who she loved, who she teased about getting gray hair, who had raised her to be the strong young woman she was today… Her dad, who for whatever reason, decided to name her Lily.

Lily hated being pigeon-holed, that was true. But not once could she ever say that she hated her name. Resent it? Sure. Be annoyed that it wasn't originally? Obviously. Hate it? Never. It was hers, a gift from her father, who hated being pigeon-holed too.


End file.
